1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monitoring system for monitoring a prescribed object to be monitored and to a terminal device used in the monitoring system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, criminals mainly including sneak thieves have rapidly increased and the methodologies thereof have become artful and rough. Therefore, subscriptions to monitoring systems by security companies have been grown steadily. As the monitoring system there has been known the type of surveiling a prescribed surveillance comprising visually discerning via a prescribed surveillance monitor an image imaged by a surveillance camera installed around the entrance of a dwelling house or within a location and, every time we have had a problem, reporting the problem. Furthermore, in recent years, a monitoring system utilizing a patrol of a movable body, such as a vehicle, in order to surveil in a comprehensive manner a wide range of regions besides predetermined facilities (refer, for example, JP-A 2002-279561 and JP-A 2004-185581).
To be specific, JP-A 2002-279561 discloses a security assistance system utilizing a taxi, comprising various kinds of sensors provided within a house, means for sensing information from the sensors and an automatic calling unit receiving the information from the means, raising an alarm over the outside of the house and calling for a taxi company by telephone.
On the other hand, JP-A 2004-185581 discloses a security system by a mobile patrol center having a vehicle used as the mobile patrol center without using major-scale mission control.
There has recently been infestation of atrocious crimes including abduction of school children on their way between school and home or others and burglary of goods besides automatic vending machines installed throughout a town, vehicles parked outdoors. Therefore, techniques for keeping these crimes from occurring have been proposed (refer, for example, to JP-A 2004-328018 and JP-A 2005-182469).
To be specific, JP-A 2004-328018 discloses a region-monitoring system having a function to detect outgo of a person to be surveiled (hereinafter referred to as the “object person”) from a specific region, intrusion of the object person on the specific region and aberrance in motion of the object person. Particularly, this region-monitoring system comprises a mobile p hone equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS) the object person takes along, a position search center that requires along a prescribed schedule the mobile phone with the GPS to transmit position data and receives the position data from the mobile phone with the GPS, and a service center that receives the position data from the position search center and, when the position data have fallen outside or within a prescribed region determined in advance by a surveillant, transmits an electronic mail to a mobile phone of the surveillant. Thus, according to this region-monitoring system, since the surveillant is not required to confirm the position every time insofar as the object person stays within his ordinary field range of activities, surveillance can be performed without effort. In addition, since the substance the object person has to take along is a mobile phone, it is said that the object person is open to taking along it.
In addition, JP-A 2005-182469 discloses a school child security communications method for automatically transmitting to a benefactor of a school child a message on whether the school child reaches the school or not. Particularly, in this school child security communications method, the procedure thereof comprises registering the ID of a school child and the activity schedule data on a data server, using a wireless readout system to read out the ID of the school child from a wireless tag system when the school child starts from home toward a school, transmitting to the data server the ID of the school child and the time the school child starts toward the school and using the data server to calculate a predicted time of arriving at school based on the activity schedule data and the time the school child starts toward the school. In the school child security communications method, when the school child has reached at school, while the wireless readout system is used to read out the ID of the school child from the wireless tag system and transmit the ID of the school child and the predicted time of arriving at school to the data server, it transmits emergency signals to the benefactor when the data server fails to receive the ID of the school child and the predicted time of arriving at school even in a prescribed period of time after the predicted time of arriving at school. In the case of the school child coming out of school, the school child security communications system takes the same procedure. As a result, it is said that the school child security communications method can call benefactor's attention to school child security at an appropriate timing because it transmits emergency signals to the benefactor in the case where the school child has not completed reaching at school or coming out of school in the prescribed period of time after the predicted time of arriving at school or home.
In the meanwhile, the conventional monitoring systems utilizing a patrol of a movable body including the techniques disclosed in JP-A 2002-279561 and JP-A 2004-185581 have posed a problem in that crimes occurring in regions not patrolled by the movable body cannot rapidly be coped with.
In addition, in the monitoring system utilizing a GPS including the technique disclosed in JP-A 2004-328018, problems have been raised in that the object person taking along a terminal device has to bear expensive connection fees and that detailed surveillance on a small region-by-region basis cannot be attained.
Furthermore, since the technique disclosed in JP-A 2005-182469 merely judges the presence or absence of aberrance based on the object person's activity start and completion times, if a crime should occur, it will be impossible to specify the crime-occurring locality. This has been problematic.
The present invention has been accomplished in view of these circumstances. The object of the present invention is to provide a monitoring system capable of infallibly grasping the position of a substance to be surveiled (hereinafter referred to as the “object substance”) at low cost without utilizing any GPS and, when an unusual situation has come about, specifying the locality thereof and rapidly and infallibly recognizing the fact that aberrance has occurred, an aberrance-occurring locality and an aberrance-occurring time and to provide a terminal device used in the monitoring system.